New Image Viewing Experience on eBay

[alex_buyerteam@ebay]

Hi all,

My name is Alex, I am a manager of the iOS/Android application at eBay. I specifically work on the Item Viewing experience -- think  the page you land on when you see the title, price, photos, description, etc.

We recently started testing a new experience, where we display image thumbnails below the main photo. We know how much our buyers love seeing all images, and we thought this would be a great way to engage with all photos. 

I wanted to make this post to see if any of you all are seeing this experience in the app ( you might need to download the latest update ) and have any thoughts/feedback? 

Last year, we have tried several different things to improve the experience (making images taller, adding the photo counter, a new gallery view, etc.) and are really excited to hear how you all feel about this new experience!

[lacemaker3]

Hi alex_buyerteam@ebay , thanks for posting about this.

Easier access to the pictures can only be a good thing, but, I don't see any way to access the description in either of your screenshots, and that is even more important.

Encouraging buyers to read the description is the single most important thing that you should be doing with the apps. Bar nothing. The link to the description should be visible and prominent on the first screen, without any scrolling whatsoever.

This is what your team should be working on, and in all honesty, nothing else will have a significant effect until buyers are encouraged (or even better, required) to read the description before they can purchase something on eBay.

[mtgraves7984]

"... I specifically work on the Item Viewing experience..."

Well, alex_buyerteam@ebay, looks like ^^^ you've done your job. Personally, I can't see them on my phone yet, but probably need to "download the latest update", as you've suggested.

I'm old school, in that I'm still going to tap/enlarge and scroll through the pics anyway, but, heck... I'm so old school that I don't buy with my phone, either.

I wish (as @lacemaker3 does) that you worked on the "Item Description Reading experience". That'd really impress.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

alex_buyerteam@ebay  First, let me thank you for being pro-active and actually notifying sellers of a proposed change and seeking our input. Sadly, you are the exception to the rule when it comes to this sort of thing, but I am grateful to you for actually engaging with sellers and keeping us informed. ebay would be a much better platform if this was the norm.

As to the change, I do not see it yet and I believe I have the latest version of the app. 

I do like what you are showing, but with a few caveats, since I can't actually test the functionality just yet. 

The current iteration allows me to click on the gallery photo, and ALL photos then appear at a nice size, and easily enlarged. In the new format, if I click on the main gallery photo or any of the photos shown below it, does it provide the same result---ALL photos then appear at a nice size, and easily enlarged?

Your example shows a main gallery photo and five photos beneath it. Both iterations do state 1 of 9 at the top right of the gallery photo, but, with the first one, that number is reinforced by the number of dots shown beneath the photo. In the new version, 5 photos are shown (presumably the maximum number that can reasonably be shown in that limited space). A buyer just glancing at the listing might think 5 is the total number available, perhaps there could be a way to reinforce that there are nine available, perhaps by enlarging the 1 of 9 text in the gallery photo?

All in all, however, I think this is a definite improvement to the gallery section.

Others have mentioned the description area, I'll add---and not sure this is your realm---but for listings with video in the gallery, ebay really needs a way to make that stand out, both in the listing and more importantly, in search---the search results page should have a filter (something like "includes video") and preferably an icon of some sort in the actual search result entry, so a buyer can see at a glance that , if he clicks through to the view item page, he will encounter a video. I've been asking for this since ebay gave us video. More sellers would take the time to shoot video if they knew ebay was highlighting it in search. 

[wastingtime101]

Hey alex_buyerteam@ebay. My phone has the latest version of the iOS app 6.102.0. I'm not seeing the new gallery layout - still have dots.

Based on your screenshot my initial comment is there's no arrow to indicate there are more than 5 photos.

One pain point with the app is how variations are handled. When one selects a variation, photo gallery scrolls forward from lead image to variation image. The problem: app does not page up to the photo section to show the user that images changed.

I've had several confused buyers message me saying there are so many photos and they want variation X but are seeing images for so much more. Once I explain to them that the photo gallery  will scroll forward after they select the variation, and they need to scroll back up the page to review the photos they get it.

Request is for the app to redirect the buyer to the top of the listing page and show photos after the buyer selects a variation.

Second problem and this goes for both the app and the website (perhaps you could team up with the person in charge of the website layout on this):

When there is only one variation left in stock and the other variations are sold out, eBay pre-selects that variation for the buyer. This has created numerous issues when, for example, the lead listing image shows all variations available and buyer is not forced to select which variation they want before purchase. Since they weren't forced to choose color blue, the only one left, they think they are getting all colors.

You may say the lead image should be updated, but that's not reasonable because usually I have more stock coming in so I'm not going to keep changing the lead listing image just because there are a couple weeks where I only have one color available. Or sometimes an item is selling fast so it's not reasonable to expect I can be there to change anything between the time other colors sell out and there are only 3 left of the last color.

Buyer should be forced to select the variation even when there is only one left. It should never be pre-selected. Buyer should be forced to see that the other variations are out of stock and they are choosing the one left.

[loverlyng]

So happy to have a voice here.... not a good move on the new photo viewer 

Hoovering to enlarge is seamless instead of click, double click, or some other pointer (cursor) problem...The instant enlargement was a unique and simple feature we all took for granted

[jpanewleicester]

Personally, I much prefer the old view. This new feature rolled out to be a while back, and then reverted to the old style. I was so relieved! BUT! it has just changed back to the new style again today, which is a real shame. 

Could you give users the choice of which layout they would prefer?

The new version is not as quick to navigate for me - you cannot quickly see all the photos at a decent size, and have to scroll along a long line rather than scrolling up and down with more photos on the page.

[qiuxvebju33]

this new so called  Image Viewing Experience is absolutely horrible, i want the old image display layout back.

[street_heat_shoes]

I'm currently running the latest version of the Android 6.135.0.2 and do not see this feature.  I think it's a great improvement because I can get the most amount of info quickly if I'm trying to buy a product.

Do you know what version of app or is it certain accounts that get access?

[klaa31]

Hate it. Hate it. 

[hawk54]

I use an IPad. Prior to approx April 1st ‘24, when I tapped on a listing pic, it automatically enlarged before I touched the arrows to cycle thru the pictures. That feature seems to have disappeared recently. Is this a eBay setting or upgrade? Or is this an issue with my IPad?I’m